The pizza industry, as well as other users of mozzarella cheeses, continues to develop products in which mozzarella cheese varieties and/or mozzarella-like styles of cheese are used over a broader range of applications. The most common practice of such is within the pizza industry. A greater variety of pizzas, changes in oven styles, cook conditions, etc., continue to be developed to maintain and/or increase a specific company's market share. The result of such growth and changes is that each of these changes typically affects the portioning of the cheese (ease of dividing into portions) and/or the amount of heat available during the cooking process to melt the cheese. The changes in the amount of heat available for cooking result in differences in overall melt performance and flavor of the mozzarella cheese on the finished, baked pizza; yet it is desired by the pizza industry that the portioning of the cheese improve, or at least not suffer, while the melt and flavor characteristics of the cheese remain the same.
Additionally, any changes that a manufacturer may make in an attempt to achieve a consistent, optimum melt and flavor performance for a specific application may impact the handling/portioning of the cheese, which is most commonly understood to be the cut integrity and firmness of the cheese; thus a product which performs and meets the melt and flavor characteristics, yet does not handle/portion adequately, is not acceptable to the pizza industry. As regards portioning, in an attempt to control food costs, greater accuracy as to the free flowing, cut integrity of the product is required.
Also, it has been proposed in the industry to offer a pizza in which mozzarella-style string cheese is rolled into the edge, or "lip" of the pizza dough prior to baking The pizza is then prepared in the traditional manner with sauce, cheese, etc., and baked using ovens and procedures widely accepted in the pizza industry. Upon baking the pizza, the cheese is supposed to melt, such that it loses its original shape, and exhibits excellent "stringy" characteristics. However, conventional string cheese melts too much and quickly flows out of the crust into which it was originally rolled. And once the pizza is cooled, the string cheese in the "lip" of the crust has a short texture, so that when it is bitten into, the cheese breaks off too cleanly, and does not swell or very slowly flow out of the crust, as is desired.
Varieties of mozzarella string cheese are commonly produced one of two ways. The first is to extrude mozzarella curd into a specific size and shape and immediately freeze the product. The second method is similar to the first, with the exception that the product is gas-flushed, and held in a refrigerated state. Neither of these two processes results in an acceptable product for the described applications. Both of these processes results in a product which lacks good meltdown qualities and is generally too tough upon cooling. An alternative product, a type of processed cheese, has been determined not to be satisfactory, as it tends to lack the desired "stringy" characteristics once cooked, and also often overmelts and flows quickly out of the "lip" of the crust.
Prior to this invention, the processes of manufacturing mozzarella cheese and/or mozzarella like products have been limited in their ability to produce products that have similar performance characteristics over a broad range of applications, and thus the end user has had to accept product that does not fully meet expectations of performance characteristics over a broad range of baking conditions.
Thus the application of mozzarella cheese varieties and mozzarella-like products continues to grow and expand within the pizza industry, as well as its use by the food service/institutional industries. A reason for this continued growth is that the performance characteristics of mozzarella cheese is typically preferred over other cheeses when it is portioned and baked on a food product. Generally the desired performance characteristics are the melt characteristics that the cheese exhibits when baked. These characteristics include meltdown, stretch, blistering/browning, and flavor.
Additionally, some mozzarella-like products, e.g., string cheese, are being used on pizzas in unique ways to diversify products within this industry, and yet the expectations as to performance characteristics of the cheese are similar to those previously described.
It is the desire of the end users that, even with the expanded application of mozzarella cheese varieties, and even with the use of mozzarella-like products, the finished product performance characteristics, especially those for melt characteristics, be uniformly good, regardless of how the mozzarella is used (e.g., with what other ingredients) or how it is baked.
Prior to this invention, manufacturers of mozzarella cheeses have been limited in their ability to satisfy fully the desire of being able to produce a cheese which would result in similar if not identical melt characteristics, independent of its application, and thus the end user, especially within the pizza industry, has had to lower his or her expectations as to the cheese having similar melt characteristics over a wide range of conditions (styles of pizzas, types of ovens, cook conditions, etc.). The cause for such a limitation is primarily due to the expanded application of mozzarella cheese, and mozzarella-like products, exceeding the ability of the cheese manufacturers to sufficiently alter the cheese's natural melt characteristics to result in similar, good melt performance over the broad range of applications to which a single type of cheese might be put.
In general, the melt characteristics of a mozzarella-type cheese is a function of the amount and/or source of heat, over a specified time, that is being transferred to the cheese during its baking. Thus one would conclude that if the amount and/or source of heat, and the time, were constant for any application of mozzarella cheese, that it would be feasible to expect similar melt characteristics. However, in its uses today, mozzarella cheese is not exposed to the same amount and/or source of heat, nor to the same time of exposure to the heat, with the result that the performance of the cheese, in terms of melt characteristics, can be substantially different from one application to the next. Some reasons why such cook conditions are not similar are due to the style of pizza being prepared; varying amounts of ingredients, thickness of crust, type of ingredients used, all of which will affect and alter the amount of heat available to cook and melt the cheese before the crust is finished baking. Additionally, the type of oven used and time of baking also have a significant impact on the amount and source of heat available for the melting of the cheese. FIG. 1 is a graph which charts the temperature profiles of three different pizza products as they were cooked in two different types of ovens. The terms "thick," "medium," and "thin" refer to the crust. The two types of oven used were conveyor and deck, as indicated. In each case, the pizza was left in the oven until the crust was baked to the desired end point. As depicted, there is a significant variation in the amount of heat available, expressed as temperature, over a varying amount of time, the result being that the melted mozzarella cheese on the finished pizzas has uniquely different melt characteristics. Some of the pizzas were fine, but others were less than desirable, in terms of the degree of stretchiness, meltdown, and/or blistering and browning.
Additionally, mozzarella-like products, e.g., string cheese, when used specifically within an outer lip of the crust of a pizza, is exposed to an atypical amount and source of heat, and without significant changes to the product, will not yield the desired melt characteristics.
The manufacturing processes, and thus the mozzarella products being produced today, are limited in their ability to achieve the desires of the end user in having products that have similar melt characteristics when cooked under a broad range of different applications. The limitations have been that changes in the manufacturing processes used to alter the melt characteristics do not alter the mozzarella cheese significantly enough to result in good melt characteristics over a broad range of different applications.
Additionally it should be understood that manufacturers of process cheeses and imitation mozzarella cheeses have not achieved the manufacturing of products that fulfill these expectations either.